


Birthday

by Shatterpath



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-11
Updated: 2005-11-11
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatterpath/pseuds/Shatterpath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara reflects back...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> Written on my birthday, 05. Thanks Kara.

A birthday is a milestone.

A celebration of a baby’s first breath, a parent’s new joy.

Dirty, weary, exhausted… I sit at the little shrine in my sleeping quarters. Strangely, the room has remained empty for what feels like a very long time, which is weird, because eight of us live in here.

There are two figures in the shrine, shaped in rough metal. Two goddesses guarding us from whatever it was that goddesses guarded us from.

Artemis, keeper of the beasts, guardian of childbirth and unmarried women. Athena, both war and wisdom. They seemed very appropriate for our new life.

On this day, the eve of my birth, I find myself thinking back, retracing the last twenty-seven years.

I can only guess that mom was happy to meet me. Aren’t all new moms happy to meet the babies they carry for so long? The way things went between us, I sometimes wonder. All the hurts she piled on me, all the anger and self-loathing I saw in her eyes…

I don’t think mom liked much of anything, least of all herself.

Yet, I managed to survive all the screaming, all the hitting, the broken bones and bruises. Heck, I think I’ve even managed to accomplish some pretty amazing shit in my time. Most of it in the cockpit of a Viper, but that’s redundant. My brilliance at piloting was innate, not learned, it always had been. If the legendary ‘Husker’ said it, then that was truth enough for me. Pyramid and piloting, that was the only things I felt good at, the only things that set me apart from everybody else. I tolerated the uniform and all its trappings because I had lost the first thing, and planned on dying spectacularly doing the second. The only way I could fly was to be in the uniform, and that was good enough for me.

That, and I really liked senior Adama and when I made him proud… it warmed me through and through. Both he and his boys were different corners of my soul and sanity.

With a heavy sigh, I sprawled out on the cold deck, the goddesses at my feet, and stared at the ceiling.

All the people and events that had influenced me, all the steps taken, had led me here.

Wonder how many more steps there were to take.

The ghosts of my past, the friends of my present, and the companions of my future all smiled in my mind’s eye. Nothing was getting done laying here, sifting through the threads of my life. There were dreams to follow, and battles to fight. There were friends to be made and lovers to be wooed. There were Vipers to fly, and fellow soldiers to celebrate with.

I owed it to both me and my family to survive many more birthdays.


End file.
